My last birds of the Alberta Summer

Today’s blog post should get me through most of my backlog of shots from 2018, so I’ll continue on where I left off in late summer…

Late August and early September saw the final waves of south-bound migrants coming through, and I was pleased to knock off no less than FOUR vireo species in one weekend, including my nemesis, the Blue-headed Vireo:

A Red-eyed Vireo:

The most common, the Warbling Vireo:

And a lovely little Philadelphia Vireo:

The last flocks of warblers were also passing by, with some of the most plentiful late migrants being Wilson’s Warblers:

And Orange-crowned Warblers:

Along with a few nice surprises, including a Black-throated Green, Palm Warbler and this energetic Chestnut-sided Warbler that led me on a merry chase:

A nice surprise was a flock of Dark-eyed Juncos that also passed through; normally this a bird I mostly see in the winter time:

This time of year also coincides with southern migration of both adult and juvenile raptors, the latter making great photographic muses as many have still yet to fully develop their wariness of humans and often happily perch out in the open completely ignoring me and my camera! This was certainly the case with this young Red-tailed Hawk that I found on a stretch of back-road east of Calgary:

This particular road was quite a bonanza, as I came across another young hawk, this time a Swainson’s:

What caught my eye here though (and apologies for the somewhat gruesome image) was the recently-caught prey the bird was consuming…a salamander! My guides tell me this hawk is an ‘opportunistic feeder’ and I recall a few years back I saw a Swainson’s devouring a Long-billed Curlew, but certainly this is the first time I’ve seen a raptor take an amphibian in Alberta:

I guess these youngsters are trying out all sorts of different foods & practicing their hunting skills at the same time.

The next raptor was slight smaller, but no less appealing, being this female Merlin:

The raptors were also abundant within the city limits, a lifer for me being this Broad-winged Hawk that hung around my local ‘warbler park’ for a few days:

Having initially misidentified this hawk as a much more common juvenile Swainson’s, I made sure I took a lot more shots when I got to the see the Broad-winged Hawk (which is typically only seen here during fall migration) again later in the week:

The raptor show rolled on in the same park when, after investigating the agitated calls of a number of warblers and nuthatches, I determined the source of their annoyance to be this Great Horned Owl which appeared understandably frazzled after being roused from its morning slumber:

And the raptors weren’t done quite just yet, with a nice show put on by a young Cooper’s Hawk that I heard calling before I saw it in the trees:

The Hawk soon came out into the open to get a better look at all the songbirds flitting about in the understorey:

However, the highlight for me was when I got a very rare opportunity to photograph a hawk in flight. Normally hawks and falcons are just too dang fast for me to lock on to, but on this occasion I was focused on the bird just before it took off, allowing me to snap a few frames as it headed off to into the woods:

Finally, during the occasional lulls between warblers and raptors, I would concentrate on some other subjects such as the Solitary Sandpiper which, despite its name, hung around the local park with several other sandpipers for a few weeks:

And sometimes, when you are just sitting around taking a break, you get a nice surprise when some of the more wary ‘skulkers’ make an unexpected appearance, as was the case with this young Sora:

All the best for the holidays & have a great new year!